George Coe

Описание: George Coe served in the US Army Air Corps in the 8th Air Depot Group during WWII. He served in Africa and the Middle East and the highest rank he achieved was that of first lieutenant.

Before the United States became involved in WWII Coe was working as a service engineer for Pan American Airways. In 1942, he began working on projects to build airway paths between the US and China. When the US became involved in the war, the US military took over the operations of Pan American Airways and offered Coe a position with them. He was 20 years old when he accepted their offer.

Coe served as an assistant engineer during his service. He was mostly dealing with repairing flight instruments and ensuring that aircrafts were flight ready after repairs. Coe recalls working on B-25 bombers and explains that they would try to repair the parts to recommission the aircrafts but if it was not possible, they would strip them off their parts and the plane would never fly again.

Coe remembers serving in Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Tunisia, and Egypt during his time in Africa. He states that Cairo was one of his favorite towns as he and the other American service men would get together in the bars and drink “Southern Busters”, alcoholic beverages. Coe explains that when he was first in Africa, in early 1943, the Germans had not yet been pushed out. Therefore, his unit was assisting the British in pushing out the “Desert Fox”, the German field marshal Erwin Rommel. Coe recalls flying with C-47 transport aircraft to pick up and deliver ammunition to British forces in Alexandria. Coe worked mostly out of British west Africa and primarily provided maintenance on planes.

Before joining the service, Coe attended the Spartan College of Aeronautics, training as a mechanic. Given this, he began his military career repairing aircraft parts, but he wanted to become a pilot. When he was assigned to Uvalde, Texas, Coe told his colonel that he wanted to go back to Tulsa to attend flying school. He was accepted into school and began training in June of 1944 to become a pilot. He first attended B-24 bomber transition school and then B-24 bomber pilot school. Coe completed his training at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois. He completed an engineering course, an aircraft design and repair course, learned how to weld, and designed structural repairs for aircrafts over a course of 6 months. This schooling took Coe up until the end of the war, and he did not go back overseas.

After the war was over, Coe was assigned to be a test pilot at MacDill Air Force base in Florida. He was flying B-29 bombers just high enough to see if they were air worthy after their repairs. He recalls flying a B-29 and smoking with the other men on the plane, when a gas leak occurred and they rushed to put out their cigarettes. Luckily, no problems occurred, and nobody was harmed.

Coe is proud of his service and says that his mother was always very proud of him as she had a flag with 4 stars on it (he and his 3 brothers all served during the war).